After a trying trek the party arrived at Secheli's in twenty days through more or less waterless country, but just before reaching these kraals an accident happened which might easily have cost Selous and Dorehill their lives. Selous was taking some cartridges from a box on the side of the waggon, in which was about a pound of loose gunpowder, when Dorehill came up and dropped some ashes from his pipe into the box. An immediate explosion followed and both were badly burnt. Sadlier, however, rose to the emergency and "at once rubbed a mixture of oil and salt into our skinless faces; it was not a pleasant process." After a visit to Secheli, who was a most completely civilized Kafir, Selous and his friends moved northward on the 28th June, with Frank Mandy, who was about to trade in the Matabele country. On the road to Boatlanarma they experienced great difficulties and were once three days and three nights without water. About the middle of August they left Bamangwato, where Selous purchased a salted horse. By exchanging his new waggon for a smaller second-hand one, a trade rifle and the horse itself valued at L75, he made a deal with a shrewd but uneducated Scotchman named Peter Skinner. Of course the new purchase ran away at the first opportunity, which delayed the party for another week. Near Pelatsi Selous had his first experience of real African hardship, and his subsequent account of being lost in the bush for four days and three nights, without covering except his shirt and breeches and without food or drink, is one of the most thrilling he ever wrote.[5] Selous and his comrades here met their first giraffes and proceeded to give chase. "After a time the giraffes separated, and suffice it to say that, at the end of an hour or so, I found myself lying on my back, with my right leg nearly broken, by coming violently into contact with the trunk of a tree; and, on getting up and remounting my horse, not only were the giraffes out of sight, but nowhere could I see either of my two companions. Though, of course, my inexperience contributed much to the unsuccessful issue of this, my first giraffe hunt, yet I cannot help thinking that my horse also had a good deal to do with it, for, having been bred in the open plains of the Transvaal Republic, he was quite at sea in the thick forests of the interior; and if, when going at full gallop through a thick wood, you intend to pass on one side of a tree, but your horse, being of a different opinion, swerves suddenly and goes to the other, it is awkward, to say the least of it.